Is Someone Tracking Me? How to spot if your smartphone is being tracked.

Since the day that Edward Snowden leaked highly classified NSA information back in 2013, the American public has been a lot more vigilant and paranoid about being monitored and surveilled upon. These concerns aren’t only limited to America though, we’ve heard and read about journalists who have had their privacy encroached upon by their own governments.

Privacy has been this past decade’s hot topic. Whether it’s Facebook leaking data or Google failing to disclose or inform its users about its own leaks, users are really concerned about their online privacy being infringed upon.

With the Internet of Things (IoT) advancing and becoming all the more popular, privacy seems more and more like a farce every day. How can we become more interconnected without oversharing? It’s a tenuous and fragile balance.

Why Privacy Is Important

“No one likes to see a government folder with his name on it.” ― Stephen King, Firestarter

Privacy is important because it is near synonymous with security.

For instance, in order to keep your information secure, you have to keep it private and only share it with trusted sources. That’s why you have to be careful where you enter your credit card information or who you share it with.

Bill Gates was once quoted as saying: “Security is, I would say, our top priority because for all the exciting things you will be able to do with computers”.

It’s a simple statement, yet still very poignant and relevant in our lives today. The security of our information is crucial to the security of our persons. So we need to protect ourselves from being spied and monitored on lest our precious information finds its way in the hands of someone with very malicious intent.

What is Phone Tracking and how is it possible?

The best way to track, tap, bug, monitor, spy and essentially infringe upon anyone’s privacy is through their smartphone.

Most of us keep our smartphones on us 24 hours a day. We’d rather lose a limb than lose our smartphones. Phone tracking basically involves installing an application or spyware on a phone in order to keep track of the phone or a user’s location as well as monitor their phone usage.

Not all uses of phone tracking are malicious.

Benevolent Phone Tracking

For instance, there are apps that allow you to track your loved ones like CocoSpy which can be accessed through www.cocospy.com.

Cocospy is basically a phone tracking and monitoring tool that works on both Android and iPhone devices. It’s designed to monitor your family or employees.

It’s basically benign spying that ensures that your family is safe or that your employee is not wasting company time. It also comes with a geofencing tool so you can set boundaries for where employees can and can’t go.

You can also monitor and spy on their social media usage as well as their text messages. In addition to this, it also allows you to monitor browser and website history.

If you want more information, you can go to Cocospy’s website and it will give you in-depth explanations and descriptions of its various features. Cocospy is a great example of benevolent spying and phone tracking.

Malicious and unwanted tracking

Usually, when someone uses an application like CocoSpy to track you, it comes from a result of a mutual understanding. No one should plant spyware on anyone else’s phone. It counts as phone hacking which is a form of surveillance and in many countries this is illegal.

Phone hackers may try to hack and monitor your phone’s usage for a number of reasons. They could be monitoring your movements so they can rob or harm you. They could be trying to spy on your messages so they can steal crucial information from you. Some law agencies have also been known to spy on people’s phones, especially if they suspect you of being part of any shady criminal elements.

Whether benign or malignant, no one deserves to be monitored without their consent. Let’s look at some signs and symptoms of being tracked.

6 Signs that you’re being tracked

1.A sudden spike in battery usage. (Some spyware can cause an increase in battery usage. If you find that your battery is running down quicker than usual)

2.Your phone crashes constantly. (Some spyware can be incompatible with your phone. Some may even be buggy regardless of the phone you put them on. This may cause your phone to crash more often)

3.Your phone becomes buggy. (If your phone stops responding more often and starts opening applications by itself, this may be a sign that there’s a virus or spyware installed)

4.Increased data or network usage. (Spyware tends to collect information from your phone and send it. It has to connect to your network in order to do this. If you’re experiencing increased data charges, phone tracking software may be the culprit)

5.Increased background noise. (While on a call or listening to music, you may experience some background noise or static or clicks. Hearing this from time to time is normal but if they’ve recently increased, then this could be a sign that you’re getting tracked)

6.Strange Texts. (If you’re receiving strange messages with numbers, codes or what seems to be a random arrangement of Unicode letters. No one is playing a prank on you. Some spyware applications use a remote control feature that works by sending and receiving encoded messages on your phone)

How to deal with Spyware and Phone tracking

It seems that jailbroken and rooted devices are more susceptible to spyware. If you suspect that you’re being spied on or tracked, I suggest you invest in a good mobile anti-spyware or anti-virus application. A great recommendation for Android devices is Anti Spy Mobile Free. In addition to detecting and removing spyware, it also helps you protect sensitive data and information.

Alternatively, advanced users can download and use a task manager app to manually manage and find spyware on their devices. Also, ensure that you’re running the latest version of iOS or Android. Some spyware may not be able to work on the latest versions.

Final Word

Hopefully, you’ve found this article illuminating and you’re more privacy-aware than you were before. If you’ve enjoyed reading this article, please recommend it and share it with your friends. It’s imperative that we take our power back and secure our information. Everyone has a right to privacy and no company or government should be allowed to infringe upon it. Thank you for reading.